Raptor (156 page)

“Not utterly, Theodoric, not yet,” I said. “And even if failure should be inevitable, it is no small thing to have attempted nobly.”

I could have wept for him, he looked so pitiably ravaged and frail and unhappy and near to despair. But at least he knew me; he was in command of his senses; so I went on:

“Let us talk of brighter topics. A lady friend of mine has suggested that these latter years of yours, Theodoric, might have been better, more joyful, even more full of achievement, if you had not been deprived of Audefleda’s loving companionship—with no other good woman to take her place. The Bible itself, you know, in its earliest pages, recommends a woman as a help meet for a man. It may well be that—with a soft, fair, feminine hand gently holding yours—you
would
now be standing straighter and stronger. Most certainly, you would have warmth and comfort against the storms and strangers without.”

Theodoric’s silent regard of me had gone from surprised to dubious to reflective in expression. I cleared my throat and went on:

“This friend of whom I speak is an old woman named Veleda. The name will tell you that she is an Ostrogoth, therefore trustworthy, and I can personally attest that she is, like her ancient namesake—the legendary prophetess, the unveiler of secrets—a very wise old woman indeed.”

Now the king looked slightly alarmed, so I hastened to say:

“Ne, ne, Veleda does not propose
herself
as your help and companion. Ni allis. She is as aged and decrepit as I am. When Veleda put forth the idea, she too quoted the Bible—where it tells of another king, David, when he was advanced in years. His servants said: Let us seek for our lord the king a young virgin, and let her stand before the king, and cherish him, and sleep in his bosom, and warm our lord the king. So they sought and they found and they brought her, and the maiden was exceeding beautiful.”

Now Theodoric was looking as near amused as I had seen him in many a year, so I went on even more hurriedly:

“It happens that my friend Veleda owns a young female slave. A genuine rarity, a girl of the Seres people. A virgin, surpassingly beautiful and unique in many other respects. I presume on our lifelong comradeship, Theodoric, to ask your permission to send old Veleda to you, so that she can offer you this exquisite maiden. She can fetch the girl this very night. You have only to order Magister Cassiodorus—I know how he guards your privacy—to see that they are admitted without hindrance. I entreat you, dear friend, not to refuse. It is a heartfelt favor I would do you. I believe you will thank me and Veleda for it. I assure you it cannot hurt.”

Theodoric nodded tolerantly, actually smiling just a little, and said—with unfeigned love for me, with gratitude for my love for him—the last thing he ever said to me, “Very well, old Thorn. Send me Veleda, the unveiler.”

I could not be doing this as Thorn—and not because, as Thorn, I swore my auths to uphold and defend the king’s greatness. I believe I
am
defending the king’s greatness. No, I will do it as Veleda because, when I give him the girl, it will be a vicarious giving of what I, as Veleda, so many times in all these years
wished
could be given.

Tonight I will take the venefica to the palace, and in Theodoric’s chamber I will unveil her of the transparent gown. I know he will accept the offering, if only to indulge the well-meant whim of his old friend Thorn. I will take also these many, many pages of parchment and vellum and papyrus, and deliver them to Cassiodorus, and ask him to store them wherever the kingdom’s other archives are kept, for future readers who might wish to learn of the time of Theodoric the Great. I and Livia may have some few pages of life yet to live, but this story that began so long ago is done.

The newly co-regnant Emperor Justinian, most Christian of nobles at Constantinople, when he commanded the closing of the Platonist schools of philosophy at Athens, wisely observed of those pagan pedagogues, “If they speak what is false, they are pernicious. If they speak what is truth, they are unnecessary. Silence them.”

The mass of manuscript composed by Saio Thorn contains many truths. But all of those—facts and details and battle accounts and other verifiable events—I have already incorporated into my own
Historia Gothorum,
where they will be much more easily accessible to scholars than they are in the marshal’s ponderous and diffuse volumes.

As a narrative of truth, then, Thorn’s work is unnecessary.

If the remainder, which is to say the bulk, of his chronicle is not outright and incredible invention, it is so scandalously impious, blasphemous, scurrilous and obscene as to offend and disgust any reader who is not a professional historian like myself, well practiced in dispassionate objectivity. As a historian, I resolutely decline to judge the worth of any written work according to its moral propriety. However, as a Christian, I must regard this book with horror and revulsion. As a normal male human being, even, I must regard it as a compilation of vile perversities. Therefore, since everything worthwhile in it is readily available elsewhere, I must denounce this work as both unnecessary
and
pernicious.

Nevertheless, the disposition of this work was entrusted to me, and I have no way of returning it to its author. The marshal Thorn has not been seen or heard of since sometime before King Theodoric was found dead in bed, and it is widely supposed that Thorn, in his grief at the king’s decease, must have cast himself into the Padus or the sea. So, nolens volens, I am encumbered with his manuscript and cannot, in conscience, destroy it.

While I refuse to deposit this work in the royal archives or in any scriptorium accessible to the public, I can put it where it will never by remotest chance assault the eyes of the unwary. Tomorrow, the late King Theodoric will be ceremoniously laid to rest in his mausoleum, together with certain of his regalia, favorite possessions, artifacts and mementos of his reign. This manuscript I will put there too, so it will be entombed and invisible and silent forever.

Theodoric died on the next-to-last day of the 1,279th Year of the Founding of Rome—that is, the 30th of August, A.D. 526—and with him died the very last afterglow of what had been the Western Roman Empire. Bereft of able leadership, his Gothic Kingdom was, within thirty years, fragmented into petty warring states. And bereft of that kingdom’s civilizing influence, all of Europe was doomed to centuries of wretchedness, despair, superstition, brute ignorance and lethargy—the era known as the Dark Ages.

Theodoric’s marble mausoleum still stands in Ravenna. But during the Dark Ages that city was more than once despoiled by invasion, siege, sack, uprising, famine, plague and destitution. At some time—no one now knows when—Theodoric’s tomb was broken open and desecrated by grave-robbers. His embalmed body, clad in golden helmet and armor, was removed, stripped of its valuables and never seen again. The robbers also took his snake-blade sword, his shield, his regalia of office, everything else that had been laid away with him. Except for his marshal Thorn’s manuscript, recently rediscovered, none of those lost treasures has ever come to light again.

The other books mentioned by Thorn as being the repositories of Gothic history, traditions, deeds and accomplishments—the
Biuhtjos jah Anabusteis af Gutam,
the
Saggwasteis af Gut-Thiudam,
Ablabius’s
De Origine Actibusque Getarum,
even Cassiodorus’s
Histaria Gothorum
—all were condemned, banned, destroyed by later rulers and Christian bishops. Those books, like the Gothic Kingdom, its Arian Christianity and the Goths themselves, are long gone from the world.

G.J.

This book could not have been completed without the help of these friends, advisers and counselors:

Herman Begega, Pompton Lakes, New Jersey

Chavdar Borislavov, Sofia, Bulgaria

The late L. R. Boyd, Jr., Teague, Texas

Robert Claytor, Staunton, Virginia

David L. Copeland, M.D., Lexington, Virginia

John J. Delany, Jr., Lexington, Virginia

Donald Dryfoos, Donan Books, New York, New York

Glenn and Janet Garvey, East Pepperell, Massachusetts

The late Joseph Garvey, M.D., Montréal, Quebec

Hugo and Lorraine Gerstl, Carmel, California

John Haverkamp, Waynesboro, Virginia

Jesse Glen Jennings, The Woodlands, Texas

The late Michael Glen Jennings, West Milford, New Jersey

George and Grethe Johnson, Lexington, Virginia

Gloria Martin, Buena Vista, Virginia

Norma McMillen, Branson, Missouri

Karla Mehedintzi, Constanta, Romania

Aylâ Meryem Midhat, Tuneli, Turkey

Sam Moran, Glasgow, Virginia

Isidora Nenadovic, Belgrade, Yugoslavia

David Parker, Washington and Lee University

Diana Perkinson, Boones Mill, Virginia

Cathryn B. Perotti, Novato, California

Robert M. Pickral, M.D., Lexington, Virginia

Taylor Sanders, Washington and Lee University

Joyce Osborne Servis, Caldwell, New Jersey

Nedelia Shapkareva, Varna, Bulgaria

Sanger and Patricia Stabler, Avilla, Indiana

Lawrence Sutker, M.D., Staunton, Virginia

Sven Swedborg, Göteborg, Sweden

Ali Kemal Vefik, Istanbul, Turkey

Hunter Wilson, San Miguel de Allende, Gto., México

Eugene and Ina Winick, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

Mary Winston, R.N., N.P., Natural Bridge, Virginia

…and Ivan Stoianov Ivanov of Sofia, Bulgaria, who, from the Iron Gate to the Valley of Roses to the Black Sea, was my guide, interpreter and frequently my rescuer.

G.J.

Gary Jennings lives in Virginia. He is the author of
Raptor, Spangle, The Journeyer,
and
Aztec.

Copyright © 1992 by Gary Jennings.

ISBN: 0-553-56282-7